Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso

Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso (21 February 1861-11 April 1934) was President of Cuba from 20 May 1921 to 20 May 1925, succeeding Mario Garcia Menocal and preceding Gerardo Machado. He was a Liberal Party of Cuba member.

Biography
Alfredo Zayas y Alfonso was born in Havana, Cuba in 1861, and he came from an aristocratic family with old sugar plantations. He was an intellectual leader for the nationalist cause, and he was imprisoned by the Spanish during the Cuban War of Independence. He returned to Cuba after the end of the Spanish-American War, and he became the leader of the Liberal Party of Cuba; he opposed the US occupation of Cuba, the Platt Amendment, and the granting of naval bases to the US at Guantanamo Bay and Bahia Honda. In 1916, he led an uprising against the US-backed General Mario Garcia Menocal after Garcia assumed the presidency despite Zayas' popular vote victory, and Zayas was ultimately forced to surrender. He served as President from 1921 to 1925, and he carried out a number of reforms (especially education reforms), refrained from censoring the press or arresting critics, and oversaw the national debt's rise to $40 million. He left office in 1925, and he died in 1934.